Adjusting rail

ABSTRACT

A door is provided for a built-in household appliance and an adjusting rail for holding a trim panel is arranged on the door. The adjusting rail includes a base panel arranged between the trim panel and the door, with that side facing the trim panel having a depression formed therein that extends transversely over the base panel.

The present invention relates to a built-in household appliance comprising a door on which at least on one of its horizontal sections is arranged an adjusting rail for securing a trim panel to a door.

Such an adjusting rail is used to facilitate securing of a trim panel to the door of a built-in household appliance, such as a built-in refrigeration unit, exactly flush with adjacent unit fronts provided with stylistically matching trim panels, by establishing a connection between the door and the trim panel which makes it possible to move and align the trim panel in small, precisely controllable steps.

The built-in appliance in question is one which is arranged in a recess in an item of kitchen furniture or is an inherently freestanding unit on which a trim panel is simply superimposed in order to achieve an appearance which is uniform with adjacent fronts of furniture items or other household appliances.

For aesthetic and technical reasons the trim panels are generally manufactured with a maximum width of 60 cm. They are therefore not suitable for cladding unit housings whose width exceeds this maximum width.

The object of the invention is to create a technique which makes it possible also to clad door fronts whose width is greater than said maximum width of the trim panels.

The object is achieved by a built-in household appliance comprising a door on which at least on one of its horizontal sections is arranged an adjusting rail for securing a trim panel, which has a base panel arranged between the trim panel and the door, and on which a depression extending transversely over the base panel is formed on one side of the base panel facing the trim panel.

The depression is provided on a household appliance equipped with such an adjusting rail in order to accommodate a strip of flat material therein, by means of which two trim panels are joined to form a composite panel. The depression in the base panel enables the two trim panels joined by the strip of flat material to be handled as a unit and allows both to be secured together in the same manner to the adjusting rail according to the invention, as happens with a single trim panel on a conventional adjusting rail having no depression.

In this manner, units can be clad whose width is greater than the currently usual maximum width of trim panels of 60 cm.

The depression is preferably located halfway along the base panel in order to enable two trim panels of equal width to be joined.

In order to be able to give the strip of flat material an adequate thickness and thus rigidity the depression preferably has a depth of 0.5 to 1.5 mm. The width of the depression should be several centimeters in order that a connection between the strip of flat material and the trim panels, particularly a screwed connection, can be made at an adequate distance from the edges of the latter in order to minimize the danger of the edges of the trim panels splitting.

By preference, a basic body for the adjusting rail is formed in a single piece from a flat material, particularly a sheet material, and is provided with a reinforcing rib extending in the longitudinal direction for stiffening purposes. In order that an apex surface of the reinforcing rib facing the housing can be used as a stop surface on the housing, the depth offset between the apex surface and edge areas of the basic body surrounding the reinforcing rib is preferably greater than the depth offset between the edge areas and said depression.

On one side of the basic body opposite the depression, projecting lugs are preferably formed which can be mounted butted against the housing of the household appliance and thus brace the trim panels against them. Since the weight to be supported by these lugs can be considerable, the reinforcing rib preferably extends right into the lugs in order to stiffen them.

Instead of the one-piece base panel described above, it is also possible to provide a multi-part base panel formed from a carrier panel and two spacer plates separated from one another by the depression.

The adjusting rail can naturally also be used in order to clad a household appliance housing with a single trim panel if the latter has the requisite width. In this case, the depression in the adjusting rail can be filled with a spacer piece.

Further features and advantages of the invention are set down in the following description of embodiments with reference to the attached figures. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 shows a perspective view of an adjusting rail according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 shows the adjusting rail, mounted on a door of a refrigeration unit;

FIG. 3 shows a front view of a composite trim panel to be mounted with the aid of the adjusting rail;

FIG. 4 shows a rear view of the composite trim panel; and

FIG. 5 shows a variant of the inventive adjusting rail.

FIG. 1 shows a perspective view of an adjusting rail 1 according to the invention. The adjusting rail 1 is formed in a single piece from sheet material and has an elongated, essentially rectangular basic body 2, on the upper edge of which projects a cross-piece 3 with two lugs 4 angled back at right angles. A stiffening flat rib 5 of irregular outline, which essentially extends over the entire length of the basic body 2, is impressed into the basic body 2. The flat apex surface of the rib 5 is offset in relation to the edge area 6 of the basic body surrounding it by about 1.5 to 3 mm. The edge area 6 has a plurality of drilled holes 7 which are provided in order to accommodate screws serving to screw a trim panel, not shown in the figure, to the front side of the basic body 2 facing the observer. In the proximity of several of these drilled holes 7 the edge of the rib 5 has an indentation 8 in each case, such that the head of a screw passing through the drilled hole 7 can be accommodated at the rear of the basic body 2 and is prevented by the rib 5 from touching a housing of a household appliance clad with the trim panel, such as a door of a refrigeration unit.

Narrow extensions 9 of the rib 5 extend right into the angled lugs 4 and thereby reinforce the right-angle which the latter form with respect to the basic body 2. Two holes 11 are punched into the lugs 4 in each case on different sides of the extension 9.

A depression 10 extends vertically centered above the basic body 2. This depression 10 is provided in order to accommodate a connecting sheet of a trim panel composed of two individual panels which is described in the following with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4. At approximately 1 mm the depth of the depression 10 is less than the height of the rib 5, with the result that it is not apparent on the apex surface of the rib 5 facing the household appliance to be clad.

FIG. 2 shows a perspective partial view of a housing of a refrigeration unit, on whose door 12 the adjusting rail 1 is mounted on the upper horizontal door section (15). On this door section 15, concealed by the lugs 4, are situated two blind tap holes in each case, one of which in each case accommodates a conventional screw 13 and the other a special screw 14. The head of the special screw comprises a disk which in the figure is concealed beneath the lug 4 and is larger than the hole 11, through which a hexagonal pin standing out axially from the disk projects with lateral play. By turning the pin, the disk of the screw 14 and with it the adjusting rail 1 resting on the disk are adjustable in height; on account of the play in the pin, it can be moved in the width and depth directions of the housing. The adjusting rail is fixed by tightening the screws 13.

The body 16 of the refrigeration unit has at the upper edge of its front frame two recesses 17, one of which accommodates a multi-joined hinge 18, which carries the door 12. If necessary, the multi-joined hinge 18 can also be mounted in the empty recess 17 in order to change the door hinge.

FIGS. 3 and 4 show a front view and rear view respectively of a composite trim panel assembled from two individual trim panels 19, to be mounted on the door 12 with the aid of the adjusting rail 1. The individual trim panels 19 are each assembled from a filler panel 20 and four profile bars 21 forming a frame around the filler panel 20. The profile bars 21 are stronger than the filler panel 20, with the result that the two trim panels 19, as shown in FIG. 4, can be permanently joined together with the aid of a sheet metal strip 22, which is screwed to profile bars 21—adjacent to one another—of the two trim panels 19, to form a composite trim panel.

In a next step, the adjusting rail 1 is screwed to the upper profile bars 21 of this composite trim panel, whereby the sheet metal strip 22 comes to lie in the depression 10, with the result that the upper profile bars 21 contact the edge area 6 of the basic body 2 over a large area. The lugs 4 are then attached onto the upper edge 15 of the door and the composite trim panel is secured to the door 12 in a manner known per se.

The adjusting rail 1 is indeed advantageous particularly when a composite trim panel which is wider than the maximum available width of the individual trim panels 19 needs to be assembled from two individual trim panels 19. It may however be desirable for aesthetic reasons to put together a unit front, which could actually be produced using a single trim panel, using two narrow trim panels mounted side by side. The adjusting rail 1 can then for example have a length of just under 60 cm, which enables two 30 cm wide trim panels joined to one another to be mounted. Such an adjusting rail 1 could naturally also be used for mounting a conventional single 60 cm wide front panel. In this case, although the depression 10 in the adjusting rail 1 is not required, it is not however a hindrance unless adjusting rail and front panel are to be screwed to one another at the height of the depression 10. If the latter is the case, it is possible, as shown in FIG. 5, to add a filler panel 23 having a thickness corresponding to the depth of the depression 10 in the depression 10, which prevents a deformation of the adjusting rail 1 by a screw fitted at the height of the depression 10. Advantageously, the filler panel 223 is provided with holes 24 which align in each case with screw holes formed in the depression 10.

An alternative embodiment of the adjusting rail is shown in FIG. 6 in a disassembled view. This adjusting rail consists of a basic element 25 which differs from the adjusting rail 1 shown in FIG. 1 by virtue of the absence of the depression 10 and a correspondingly smaller height of the rib 5, and two compensating plates 26, 27 which consist of a sheet material having the same thickness as the sheet metal strip 21 and have holes 28 aligned with the drilled holes 7 in the basic element 25 which accommodate screws for securing the front panels 18. 

1-9. (canceled)
 10. A built-in household appliance, particularly a built-in refrigeration unit, the built-in household appliance comprising: a.) a housing forming an interior space; b.) a door for selectively closing off and permitting access to the interior space; and c.) at least one adjusting rail arranged on the door, the at least one adjusting rail for securing a trim panel to the door, the at least one adjusting rail including a base panel arranged between the trim panel and the door, the base panel for supporting the trim panel and the at least one adjusting rail including a means forming a depression extending transversely over the base panel, the depression being formed on a respective side of the base panel that faces the trim panel.
 11. The built-in household appliance as claimed in claim 10, wherein the depression is located substantially halfway along the transverse extent of the base panel.
 12. The built-in household appliance as claimed in claim 10, wherein the depression has a depth of 0.5 to 1.5 millimeters (mm) and a width of several centimeters (cm).
 13. The built-in household appliance as claimed in claim 10, wherein the base panel is formed from a flat material as a single piece and includes a reinforcing rib extending in the longitudinal direction of the base panel, and a depth offset between an apex surface of the reinforcing rib and edge areas of the base panel surrounding the reinforcing rib is greater than a depth offset between the edge areas of the base panel surrounding the reinforcing rib and the depression.
 14. The built-in household appliance as claimed in claim 13, wherein the base panel includes lugs projecting from one side of the base panel opposite the depression and the reinforcing rib extends directly into the lugs.
 15. The built-in household appliance as claimed in claim 10, wherein the base panel is composed of a carrier panel and two spacer plates separated from one another by the depression.
 16. The built-in household appliance as claimed in claim 10 and further comprising two trim panels secured to the adjusting rail and joined to one another by a strip of flat material included in the depression.
 17. The built-in household appliance as claimed in claim 16, wherein the overall width of the joined trim panels is greater than 60 centimeters (cm).
 18. The built-in household appliance as claimed in claim 10, wherein the depression in the adjusting rail is filled with a spacer piece. 